CHILD Cohort Study profiled in Wave magazine

Ilsa Buchholz is one of the almost 3,500 kids participating in the CHILD Cohort Study. Hear about what being a part of CHILD means to Ilsa and her parents, what tests Ilsa undergoes every few years during her clinical visit, and what motivates the family to continue participating in this pan-Canadian research project after nine years of involvement.

Meeting this special family is just one reason to read “The 3,500 Club,” a feature story in the March/April 2019 issue of Wave magazine, a publication of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

The “club” in question is, of course, the CHILD Cohort Study. The story also introduces the Study’s Manitoba site co-leaders, Drs Meghan Azad and Allan Becker, from whom we hear about the origins and design of the study, and about the CHILD research in which they have been involved.

Readers also learn about research results related to the microbiome and the exposome that are generating global attention and changing our understanding how to promote health across the life course. They are also introduced to CHILD findings that are expanding insight into the early-life origins of health and disease—for example, about the health impacts of birth method and infant feeding, and the role of certain bacteria in protecting children from asthma.

“There is a lot of focus in medicine on the development of new treatments and cures, which is important, but ideally, we’d rather prevent diseases in the first place,” Dr. Azad told Wave. “To do that, we need to know how they get started, and that’s what CHILD is allowing us to do.”